Psalm 38
by BisMoran
Summary: A series of interconnected vignettes about how the AIDS epidemic effected the hunter community. A combination of OCs, show characters, and named, but not fleshed out characters from Supernatural will appear in these vignettes.
1. Chapter 1

Late October 1980

Bobby's drive up to Frank Has No Horses house was uneventful. It was snowy. Like most winter's drives through Minnesota, and it was pretty, and it was a long drive, but otherwise, there wasn't much to say about it.

The drive from his house to the Red Lake Rez usually took him four hours tops, but he'd stopped for a peaceful lunch at some little family restaurant on the way and gotten into a conversation with one of the men there about Reagan and it had taken a little longer. (Both men had agreed the crazy would probably be elected before Carter. Unfortunately.)

So, when he got to Red Lake, it was nearly seven. And Rufus and Frank were already waiting for him.

"The hell took you so long, Singer?" Frank teased as Bobby pulled into the driveway. Frank was a tall man, young too, younger than Rufus or Bobby by about five years, and he near permanently had a smirk on his face and a cigarette hanging from his lips.

"Got stuck," he said. "Some Reaganite was talking about the man like he was the second coming. Shut him down real quick."

Rufus grinned. "I knew you wouldn't like that nutjob, Bobby."

The three men walked inside. Frank poured them each a glass of whiskey.

"You kept sayin' when Bobby got here you'd tell me what the damn case is," Rufus said, taking a long sip of the gold-brown liquor. "Bobby's here. Tell us."

"Just a simple salt and burn," Frank said, laughing a little.

"You called us all the way out here for a salt and burn? I had a _date," _Rufus grumbled.

"With who, Turner? Your left hand?"

"No," Bobby said, jumping in to join the ribbing, "His right one."

"No. With Annie Hawkins. Now. Why the hell did you call us out here for a salt and burn? Don't tell me you're too stupid to figure out how to dig up a grave." Rufus smirked a little at his friendly jab.

"It's a kid. My cousin's kid, Lia. She died a few months ago. Drowned swimmin' with her cousins. And I couldn't bring myself to do it. But she's pulling shit. Startin' to become vengeful. So, I needed people who weren't close to the thing to do me a favor and dig'er up and burn her."

Bobby quickly finished his first glass of whiskey and began to pour himself a second. "I'm gonna need to be a hell of a lot more drunk for this," he mused, filling his glass about a third of the way up.

"Top me off too, Bobby," Rufus said. And Bobby complied, pouring his friend another glass.

"I hope the two of you finishing my Johnny Walker means you'll do it. Otherwise, I might start chargin' both of you."

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah," Bobby said. "I'm in."

Rufus downed this second glass of whiskey, then set the glass down on the table with a clink. "I'm in too."

"Do people know what we're doing or-?" Bobby started to ask.

"You honestly think I'd tell people? What? You think just cuz I'm NDN we'll all be okay with grave desecration?" Frank asked. He was still smiling, but it was a warning smile. The smile he gave when he couldn't quite tell who's side you were on.

"I meant the kid's mom. So she could say some words when we're done, you idjiot. Stop trying to make every damn thing I say out to be racist. It isn't."

"We're just keeping you on your toes, Singer," Frank teased. But Bobby could tell he was relieved. "Her mom's in rehab. So, she can't be here."

Bobby nodded. "Heroine's one hell of a drug."

Once Bobby and Rufus were drunk enough, Frank took them in his trunk down to the cemetery. The salt and burn went as good as one with kids ever really went, but it was over comparatively quickly.

They drove back to Frank's house just as the sun started to come up over the horizon, it took awhile for a body, even one as little as Lia's had been, to burn, especially in the winter, and the ground had been hard to dig.

When they got inside, Frank hung up his coat and walked into the kitchen. He turned on the coffeemaker in his small kitchen, only divided from his living room by a piece of wall that jutted out about two feet on each side, and a hanging of macrame and beads. The small, narrow staircase leading upstairs took up more than a fourth of what could have been potential kitchen space.

"Whiskey in your coffee?" he asked both men, not looking at them as he began to root through his avocado green fridge for some acceptable breakfast eats.

"Please," Bobby said, sitting down at the table in the living room. It sat just to the left of the beat up old couch. It looked like it'd been one of those outdoor table and chairs restaurants had, with the legs welded onto the table. Rufus nodded in agreement.

"Bacon, hash, and biscuits okay with you?" Frank asked, this time turning to look at them. "Or you want eggs too?"

"I don't know, Frankie, we been diggin' up a kid's grave all night. I think we need more than just a little bacon and biscuits," Rufus said, grinning. There was more joke than truth in his statement, but Frank took out the eggs anyway. Once he had the food started up, he carried the three chipped cups of whiskey laced coffee, or, more accurately, coffee laced whiskey, setting one in front of each man.

"When you gonna cut that mess of hair of yours?" Bobby teased, gesturing to his friend's long black hair.

"When you gonna lose that beergut of yours?" Rufus teased right back, probably as revenge for Bobby joining in Frank's ridicule of his date the night before.

"I don't know, when you finally get a date with someone who don't have to put a paperbag over your head to sleep with you."

The three men laughed, and when the laughter stopped, Frank looked up, rubbing at his left hand with his right.

"Either of you know anythin' about witches' spells causing bruising or strange marks a while after you kill'em?"

"No, why?" Rufus asked, sipping his coffee.

"Noticed this when I finished with a witch down in Mille Lacs a month ago. It won't go away." He raised his hand and showed the back of it. There was a large, purple spot on the back of his left hand in about the shape of a rounded heart. "Thought maybe she hexed me or something."

"Maybe you should go to the doctor or somethin'," Bobby suggested.

Frank just laughed at the idea. They didn't talk about much else over breakfast when it was finally ready. And Bobby didn't think about that funny purple spot at all after that conversation was over. But later, when he looked back on things, that would be the place where he'd mark the line, between before, and after.


	2. Chapter 2

February 1981.

The dusty Texas road looked particularly pretty at night, especially considering it was a desert. The sky was so purple it was almost black and Bobby, in his head, swore he had never seen as many stars anywhere else. They seemed to litter the night sky, seeming to touch the mesas.

"S'pretty out here," he commented gruffly to Frank.

Frank nodded in agreement. "S'why I like making the drive at night; makes it easier and you get a good view."

"Shitty reception though," Bobby gestured to the radio, which had a station playing Spanish language covers of English rock songs fizzling in and out.

Frank nodded again.

"The Mexicans know we're coming, right?" Bobby asked after about twenty minutes of silence.

Frank looked at him. Unlike usual, he wasn't smiling. He looked puzzled. Like he was trying to figure out how this pretty place was made. He rubbed at his left hand. "Don't call them the Mexicans. They don't like it."

"Whatda I call them then?" Bobby asked. His voice wasn't aggravated or annoyed. But curious.

"Seyados. It's the word they use for hunters…our type of hunters."

Bobby nodded. "Seyados," he repeated.

Frank smiled. "Yeah."

Silence set in for a few more miles.

"Why'd you want to come?" Bobby asked. "Coulda handled it myself."

"You would have called them 'The Mexicans'."

"You didn't know that."

"I know you."

"Bullshit. Why'd you really come?"

Frank smirked and gestured zipping his lips closed.

"Idjiot," Bobby murmured under his breath, smiling fondly as they drove into the night, the A/C on high.

They got to a small bar off the side of the road called 'Hostería de Graciela' around midnight. There was a small gravel parking lot marked off by bricks to the right of the building and above the door was a wooden carving of two pearl-handled and ornately carved pistols crossed, with smoke coming out of them. A blackboard in the window bore the message 'DINERO AMERICANO SÓLO', and underneath was the names and prices of all the drinks.

Bobby walked inside. "So, who's El Jefe?"

"Don't call him that. His name is Ramón," Frank said. "And that's him." He pointed to a tall, fat dark skinned man in a t-shirt and jeans, with a beard and a moustache sitting in the corner, drinking with a few of his cronies. "I'm gonna go grill his son and see what I can find out from him about how to take down an el sobreón."

Bobby nodded and walked towards the big guy.

Frank walked by the man he was looking for's table twice, making sure the other man saw him, then, through the side door, he walked outside.

Five minutes later, the other man followed.

"Hey Frank," he greeted in English, walking over to Frank, his hand barely brushing over the other man's.

"Hey Aarón" Frank said, swallowing, looking at the other man in the starlight. Aarón looked well. Healthy. His hair was well groomed and he had a fashionable moustache, just like Burt Reynold's. He wore a clean western snap shirt and jeans. And to Frank, he was beautiful.  
"It's been awhile, hasn't it?" He brushed his hand over Frank's again, and Frank repeated the gesture.

"Yeah…Almost four months."

"Missed you. Worried about you."

"Missed you too." Frank said, looking like he was about to cry.

"Ate anything?"

"No."

"C'mon. I'll fix you something at home. You can stay the night, maybe the weekend." Aarón began to lead the other man to his car.

"I can only stay tonight," Frank said. "M'with a friend. And he'll get suspicious if I stay longer."

"Then we better make tonight count, haven't we?" Aarón asked, laughing as he got into his truck.

They drove the three or four miles to Aarón's house. It didn't take all that long to get there, but both men were tense throughout the ride, with the need to just touch each other. But people from the hostería might have been driving by and might have seen.

Once they were safely inside, safely in the bedroom, the blue-green walls their sanctuary, Aarón leaned over and chastely kissed Frank. The chaste kissing gave way to less chaste kissing, which gave way to other things, and Frank could nearly cry of happiness. And that night, and the next morning, Aarón didn't notice the one, now two, purple spots on his lover's body.


End file.
